Tropospheric range error parameters: Further studies

Abstract

Improved parameters are presented for predicting the tropospheric effect on electromagnetic range measurements from surface meteorological data. More geographic locations have been added to the earlier list. Parameters are given for computing the dry component of the zenith radio range effect from surface pressure alone with an rms error of 1 to 2 mm, or the total range effect from the dry and wet components of the surface refractivity and a two-part quartic profile model. The new parameters are obtained, as before, from meteorological balloon data but with improved procedures, including the conversion of the geopotential heights of the balloon data to actual or geometric heights before using the data. The revised values of the parameter k (dry component of vertical radio range effect per unit pressure at the surface) show more latitude variation than is accounted for by the variation of g, the acceleration of gravity.